Various efforts have been made to provide combined cooling, heat, and power systems. However, the known systems all have their drawbacks. For example, in the range of distributed generation which is less than 200 kW, which is known in the art as “micro” or “microgeneration,” the electric power generation efficiency is relatively low. Therefore, it is valuable to consider poly-generation, for example combined heating and power (CHP), as a practice for small power or heat needs.
Almost all of the current combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) applications have been designed and installed using existing commercial products. Typically they consist of a power generator, a heat recovery unit (HRU), a cooling system (an electrical compression system or an absorption chilling system), and a cooling tower. For residential or small business applications, the current practice is too complicated, bulky, expensive, and intimidating. Furthermore, the overall thermal/electric efficiency of existing micro-CCHP systems are generally below 70% and hover at 65% due to the small sizes of each component and the additional irreversibility generated between individual commercial units.
Thus, a need continues to exist for an integrated CCHP system which overcomes one or more of the aforementioned deficiencies of known systems.